U.S. lawmakers Connie Mack IV and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen sought Thursday to increase pressure on the Bahamas to release two Cuban dentists who have been detained there since April despite having prior clearance to migrate with their families to the United States.
The two Florida Republicans said that unless the Bahamian government acts soon to free David Gonzalez-Mejias and Marialis Darias-Mesa, they would begin pushing in Congress for economic sanctions such as withdrawal of easier customs clearance for passengers on cruise ships between the United States and the Bahamas.
“We should no longer allow the Bahamian government and (Cuban President) Fidel Castro to work as a team to keep families apart,” Mack said at a news conference with Ros-Lehtinen in Miami’s Little Havana.
Gonzalez-Mejias and Darias-Mesa have been detained in the Bahamas since April, when a boat carrying them and 16 other Cuban migrants stalled out in Bahamian waters. They were picked up by the U.S. Coast Guard and handed over to Bahamian officials, who have an agreement with Cuba calling for repatriation of Cuban nationals.
What makes the pair unusual is that three years earlier, they had obtained permission to migrate with their families to the United States. Although their families were allowed by Cuba to leave _ settling in Tampa and Cape Coral, which is in Mack’s district _ the two dentists were prevented from making the trip.
They fled Cuba after concluding that Castro’s government would never allow them to rejoin their family members through normal immigration, Mack said. By then, their visas to enter the United States had expired, so they copied the papers and went ahead anyway.
“This is about real people who want their loved ones back,” Mack said.
Ros-Lehtinen, a senior member of the House International Relations Committee, said she met two weeks ago with Bahamian Ambassador Joshua Sears about the issue and that Florida Gov. Jeb Bush had recently telephoned Bahamian Prime Minister Perry Christie to urge the pair’s release.
“It’s a dismal situation for Cubans who are detained in the Bahamas,” Ros-Lehtinen said.
In a telephone interview Thursday, Sears said the Bahamians agree in general that “families need to be reunited” but that the government is concerned that releasing the two dentists could encourage thousands of Cubans and Haitians to try to get to the United States through the Bahamas.
“It poses not only a security risk but also risks the lives of persons,” Sears said. “It’s a real concern.”
Sears said the Bahamian Cabinet intended to make a decision “in the very near future” about whether to send the two dentists back to Cuba or allow them to go to the United States.
The Bahama Journal
